A slight majority of voters support the deportation raids that President Trump said occurred across the country over the weekend, a poll out Wednesday found.
While 51 percent of the respondents said they agree that illegal immigrants with outstanding court orders should be deported, 85 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of Democrats do, a Politico/Morning Consult poll found.
It also showed that 59 percent of Democrats oppose the raids along with 35 percent of independents.
Only 20 percent of Republicans oppose the deportations.
But despite immigration issues generating headlines because of reports about migrants being held in crowded detention centers on the border, public sentiment on whether it constitutes a crisis hasn’t budged much.
The poll found that 45 percent of voters thought it was a crisis, up from 44 percent in April and 42 percent in January.
“Keeping immigration in the headlines helps President Trump with his base in the run-up to the 2020 election,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president. “Security issues track as the No. 1 issue when Republican voters head to the polls.”
Trump said last week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would carry out deportation raids over the weekend in 10 cities, seeking thousands of illegal immigrants who had been ordered out of the country by a judge.
But the operation didn’t appear to be carried out on as large a scale as expected.
Trump on Monday said they had been “very successful,” but neither he nor his administration offered evidence to support the claim.
The survey was conducted between July 12 and 14 and polled 1,984 registered voters. It has a plus/minus margin of error of 2 percentage points.